It’s a somber occasion for George Poole. His father has just died, and he’s the only
one in the family left in England to return home and see to the estate. Not that there’s much of an inheritance to
split with the one other living relative, his older sister, Gina, who’s happily
married and raising a family way over in Florida.

But at least his boyhood chum, Peter McLachlan, is around to help go
through dad’s few earthly possessions.
Peter’s kind of a weirdo, being heavily into SETI and other far-out
groups who look for anomalies in outer space, to say nothing of
extraterrestrials. But it’ll be good to
have someone there to help dispose of the family keepsakes.

So
it is quite to George’s surprise to learn he has a sister he’s never heard
about. A twin sister, no less. Taken away (or more accurately,givenaway)soon after birth, and placed in some sort of religious order in Rome.

Say,
wasn’t there some sort of family legend about one of George’s
many-times-great-grandmother (and wasn’t her name Regina?) also being involved
with a religious order? But that was 15 centuries ago, back in the days right after the Roman Legions abandoned
England. Surely there’s no connection,
right?

Hmmm.

What’s To Like...

Coalescent
is yet another ambitious effort by Stephen Baxter, with four storylines and
genres involving untold millennia cleverly interwoven into an overarching Poole
family saga. There’s a present-day
story, one of Intrigue, that follows George’s efforts to locate his long-lost
twin sister. There’s a Historical Fiction account of the legendary Regina. There’s a Drama plotline involving a girl
named Lucia, who wants out of her present-day situation in Rome. And late in the novel, there’s a very small
Science Fiction thread that takes place far in the future.

Personally,
my favorite thread was Regina’s story, as all of Western Europe, and England
especially, fall into the Dark Ages after the collapse of the Roman
Empire. Stephen Baxter’s attention to
detail in this is impressive, and I liked that he went with gritty realism, as
opposed to some King Arthur type of fantasy tale. I enjoyed learning about the
“Wall Walk”, some nominal contact with Druids, and even a brief mention of an
ancient religion near and dear to my heart – Mithraism.

Life
was tough in those first years after the fall of Rome. So if frequent cussing isn’t your cup of tea,
or you find things like rape, oral sex, slavery, homosexuality, and ritual
procreation offensive, you might want to skip this book.

The
unifying theme to the book is Baxter’s hypothesis that societies – be they
insects, mammals, or even humans – when placed in extremely stressful and
existence-threatening conditions, will adapt a “hive mentality”, where everyone
has a predetermined role that needs no explaining, and does it without fail or
question. The individual members of such
a society won’t even be aware of this collective mentality, they will just
naturally coalesce into it, hence the
book’s title. The three favorite maxims
within the Order are “Ignorance is Strength”;
“Listen to your Sisters”, and (most
importantly)“Sisters matter more than
Daughters”.

The ending ties these disparate storylines together, with a twist or
two to keep you on your toes. This is a
standalone novel, but several loose threads remain afterward (most notably, the Kuiper Belt Anomaly),
which presumably pave the way for the sequel and the rest of the series.

Kewlest New Word...

Eusocial(adj.)
: of an animal species (usually insects) showing an advanced level of social
organization, in which a single female or caste produces the offspring and
non-reproductive individual cooperate in caring for the young.

Others : Extirpating(v.); Intaglio(n.).

Excerpts...

Rosa leaned
forward and said softly, “Mamma- Mamma-“

Maria looked up
blearily, her eyes rheumy grey pebbles.
“What, what? Who’s that? Oh, it’s you, Rosa Poole.” She glanced down at her book irritably, tried
to focus, then closed the book with a sigh.
“Oh, never mind. I always thought
old age would at least give me time to read.
But by the time I’ve got to the bottom of the page I’ve forgotten what
was at the top …” She leered at Lucia,
showing a toothless mouth. “What an
irony – eh?”(pg. 232)

“No
Renaissance. There would have been no
need for it. But there would have been
none of the famous Anglo-Saxon tradition of individual liberty and
self-determination. No Magna Carta, no
parliaments. If the Romans had gone to
the Americas they wouldn’t have practiced genocide against the natives, as we
did. That wasn’t the Roman way. They’d have assimilated, acculturated, built
their aqueducts and bathhouses and roads, the apparatus of their civilizing
system. The indigenous nations, in North
and South America, would have survived as new Roman provinces. It would have a richer world, maybe more
advanced in some ways.”

“But no
Declaration of Independence. And no
abolition of slavery, either.”(pg.
416)

“Honesty doesn’t excuse
ignorance. But it helps.” (pg. 504)

For
all its lofty aspirations, Coalescent
doesn’t quite …um… coalesce into a smooth,
seamless story. First and foremost, the pacing
is uneven. The initial storyline,
George’s search for his sister, moves much too slow, and takes a hundred+ page
sabbatical in the middle of the book while waiting for the Lucia thread to
catch up. The Regina storyline ends
early – well, she had to die sometime – and is sustained only by some sparse, interesting,
but ultimately unrelated temporal updates about the Order’s activities. And the futuristic plotline is woefully short, sparsely developed, and seems to exist
only to give a glimpse of the sequels.

To boot,
there simply isn’t much Science Fiction here, and those who read Stephen Baxter
novels for that genre are going to be disappointed. OTOH, those, like me, whose favorite Baxter
book is Evolution (reviewed here) will
find one or more story threads in this book to be quite interesting.

These
would be some serious drawbacks, if it were not for Stephen Baxter being one
heckuva an accomplished writer. Hey, he kept
me interested in the Drama storyline, and that’s not a genre that I'm particularly fond of.

Overall, I found Coalescent to be a
good, but not great effort by Baxter.
This may change depending of how well I like the sequel, Exultant, which sits within my Kindle, waiting to be
read.

8 Stars. Add
½ star if the phrase “Kuiper Belt Anomaly”
piques your science-fiction interest. I
have a feeling it plays an integral part in the rest of the books in this
series.

Friday, September 23, 2016

The
year is 1927. Her Madge, Queen Victoria
is about to feted at her Double Sapphire Jubilee, which means she’s been on the
Royal Throne for 90 years. The
celebration will take on Count Ilya Rostov’s spaceship “The Leviathan”, orbiting in space high
above the Earth. Dignitaries and
Luminaries from all four planets in Queen Vic’s empire will be there.

What? You say Queen Victoria died
in 1901 and there weren’t any such things as spaceships in the 1920’s? And that furthermore you can prove it because this is all historical record from almost a century
ago? I’m sorry, you must be living in an
alternate universe.

But there are those who say that things are (were) going to go amiss during
the event, and that somebody needs to go back in time and put things aright
again.

And whoever agrees to do this ought to have a time-traveling sprout in
his head, to lend him sage advice.

What’s To Like...

The Abominable Showmanis Robert Rankin’s most
recent effort, and, as is true of any of his books, is chock full of
absurdity, wit, plot twists, and clever dialogue. The hero of the story is – well, we don’t
really know, since his name is never revealed - and that takes some deft writing by Rankin. But the plotline
is easy to follow: he uses a 1st-person POV when the protagonist is involved, a 3rd-person POV for everyone else.

As in any Rankin offreing, the dialogue and peripheral craziness take precedence over the main
storyline. A lot of the recurring gags appear again here, including the lady in a straw hat, Lazlo Woodbine, Fangio’s bar,
and the mystical martial art, Dimac. But
the story’s events are ambitious and fascinating too. The reader will take a walk in the Garden of
Eden, play 3-D Clue, learn the secret of the Sun, travel through time and
dimensions, meet God (his first name is Terrance, FYI), and last
and probably least, save the World.

There’s
a MacGuffin, some great mixed drinks (rum and cocaine, mescaline and lemonade, etc.),
and a bunch of sounds-dirty-but-isn’t
euphemisms, such as buffing the landau, biffing the badger, and chasing pinky
around the garden lady.

The characters are fun to meet as well.
John ‘Boy’ Betjeman will entertain you with his little odes, and the
three owls (Owl Jolson, Owl Capone, and Owleister Crowley)all contribute to the amusing antics.

Despite all the literary tangents, everything builds steadily to an
exciting, twisty and well-conceived ending.
This is a standalone novel, and a worthy addition to several series in
Robert Rankin’s repertoire.

Kewlest New Word...

Catspaw(n.)
: a person used to serve the purposes of another.

Others : Tumescence(n.); Beadle(n.);Tannoy(n.).

Excerpts...

“Well,” said the
chap. “You’ll be kept busy. Just about every high-falooting swell on the
four worlds will be attending the Jubilee ball.
The celebrations will be like nothing
on Earth.” The chap laughed loudly
at what he considered to have been a rather witty remark. I laughed too, but out of politeness.

“Ninety years is a very long time for a queen to be on
the throne,” I said.

“Her bum would be
rather sore,” said the chap and he laughed once more, and louder. (loc. 1043)

“Armadillos,”
said Sir Jonathan Crawford once again.
“Crusty little nubnunks that scuttle about like bandy-legged butlers.”

“Know the fellas
well,” said the roguish Atters. “Bagged
a few in the Americas on a big game hunt last year. “Had a motor cycle helmet made out of
one. Can vouch for their inefficiency in
regards to cushioning the head. Came a
cropper, terrible business.”

“You wore one on
your head whilst riding a motor bicycle?” queried John ‘Boy’ Betjeman.

“Me?
Heavens no. Had the mater test it
out for me.”(loc. 2508)

Kindle Details...

The
Abominable Showmansells for $8.99 at Amazon, a decent price for
the latest release by this author.
Robert Rankin has a slew of other books for the Kindle, all in the $4.99-$7.99
range, and most of them going for $6.99.

“If you are going to destroy our planet can I be on your side?” (loc. 535)

There’s
nothing to quibble about in The Abominable Showman, with ample humor although it didn’t reach out and grab my funny bone the way a lot of other Robert Rankin books I’ve read did.
Still, it is a worthwhile read and we're really just nitpicking between a good book by the author and an excellent one.

FWIW,
a number of Amazon reviewers seemed a tad bit peeved that Mr. Rankin self-published this
book and thus it is only available in the Kindle version. My reading happens to be about equally
divided between e-books and “real” books, so this didn’t make any difference to
me. I can’t say I prefer one over the
other; both have their assets and drawbacks.

One
reader/reviewer offered some interesting insight into his displeasure in this
regard. He said he owns every one of
Robert Rankin’s books, and they stand proudly in his bookcase. But this one can’t take its place alongside
the others, because it only exists in electronic form.

Hey, do you remember that great comedy-drama
(aka: “dramedy”) series, Moonlighting, starring Cybill Shepherd and
Bruce Willis? Man, I loved that
show. You could tell that there was
great chemistry between the two stars.
That’s what made the series so funny.

Well
if you happen to be a fellow fan of Moonlighting,
there’s a whole chapter in Civil Disobedience
that focuses on that series, with Cybill Shepherd giving the reader a
behind-the-scenes look at the goings-on of a hit show. She devotes even more ink to her
subsequent series, the eponymously titled Cybill. Cybill-holics will be both enlightened and amazed.

Oh, and
BTW, that chemistry between Bruce and Cybill?
It’s strictly in the mind of the beholder.

What’s To Like...

Cybill
Disobediencechronicles the life of Cybill Shepherd from birth up
through the cancellation of her series, “Cybill”, in 1998. The book is divided up into 12 chapters,
whose lengths vary considerably. This is
a “tell-all” book; Cybill doesn’t hold back on her family, her fellow Hollywood
celebrities, and especially not on herself.

Other
than the Prologue, the book is chronological.
A new chapter indicates a new stage in Cybill’s life, with some of the
topics being : Family Tree, Teenage Sex, Beauty Pageants & Modeling, Making
Movies, and Hollywood Sex. Mixed into
all this busy-ness are several marriages and divorces, a role as a mistress, a
couple of kids and an abortion.

The sex passages aren’t lurid, but are detailed as to who and when. There is a lot of name-dropping, which I
liked. Among the people we get to meet
(warts and all): Elvis, Dustin Hoffman Ryan O’Neal, Charles Grodin, Joey
Bishop, Don Johnson, and many more. The
degree of interaction ranges from flirting, to making out, to rolling in the hay.

OTOH, if you’re more interested in the life of a movie star, the book
doesn’t disappoint either.
Shooting on location in Thailand may sound exotic, but not when there’s
no running water or decent food. Trying
out for parts means you’re in competition with other attractive and desperate
actresses, and it can be quite humbling when you’re passed over for someone
else. Even more crushing are the
soul-killing, negative reviews

The
writing is good, and it is nice to see the ghostwriter getting due credit for
her efforts. I loved reading the details,
both personal and professional. Barbra
Streisand refusing to cut the fingernails on one of her hands for What’s Up Doc?, leading to wardrobe and prop
challenges. The “duck walk” at the
Peabody Hotel (I’ve
seen it!). How she came to
get her unusual first name.

Kewlest New Word…

Cynosure(n.)
: a person or thing that is the
center of attention or admiration.

Others : Sobriquet(n.)

Excerpts...

(W)omen who
represent the cultural gamut of sizes and ages aren’t too welcome in any
media. After nearly a decade of
murmuring “I’m worth it” for L’Oreal, I was fired because my hair got too old –
approximately as old as I was. It’s okay
for Robert Mitchum to get up early in the morning and look like Robert Mitchum,
but it was not okay for me to wake up in the morning and look like Robert
Mitchum. Fans are always asking why
Bruce Willis and I don’t reprise our Moonlighting
roles for the big screen. The answer is:
studio executives would consider me too old for him now.(loc. 58)

An old Hollywood
joke (often repeated with the substitution of different names) lists the five
stages of an actor’s career. First: Who
is Dustin Hoffman? Second: Get me Dustin
Hoffman. Third: Get me a Dustin Hoffman
type. Fourth: Get me a young Dustin
Hoffman. Fifth: Who is Dustin Hoffman?(loc. 1849)

Kindle Details...

Cybill Disobediencesells for $0.99 at Amazon, which is
a remarkably reasonable price for a tell-all book by a Hollywood headliner. Unsurprisingly, this is Ms. Shepherd’s only
literary offering.

Perhaps I have karmic dues
to pay for my participation in the cult of emaciated buffness. (loc. 3616)

If you read the reviews at Goodreads and
Amazon, Cybill Disobedience gets savaged
quite a bit. At both sites, the overall
rating barely clears 3.0, which is abysmal, particularly for a non-indie
published book. Words like “bitchy” and
“spoiled” abound.

When I was about 75% through the book, I still couldn’t see the cause of
all the negativity. Yes, there were some
cutting remarks earlier, a couple even bordering on being snarky. But nothing really vicious. Then I hit the chapters on the show Cybill.
Then I understood.

Cybill Shepherd has some serious bitterness over the handling of that
show. Just about everyone – from
co-stars to directors to network suits – is viewed as being back-stabbers at best,
traitors at worst. Whether this was true
or not, I cannot say. But the harshness
of Cybill’s words significantly detracts from the classiness of the first 9
chapters.

Finally, and e-book contained a staggering number of typos. It seemed like someone scanned the hardcover book, then didn’t bother to see if the text conversion was accurate. Cybill has no control over this, of course,
but you’d think a publishing company could afford at least one editor to proof
the electronic version, and fix the errors.
Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy.

8 Stars.
Despite the typos throughout, and the
rancor at the end, I really enjoyed Cybill Disobedience. I rarely read biographies, and can’t recall
ever reading an autobiography before. This one is worth your time.

Monday, September 5, 2016

Something’s gotten into the ghosts around
Chicago. Not literally, of course,
ghosts have no substance to them, at least not over here in our world. But they seem to have grown more powerful, and
meaner too.

So
Chicago’s only practicing wizard, Harry Dresden, and his thinks-he’s-a-knight pal, Michael, have their work cut out for them
as they do battle with a particularly big and beastly shade who's making
mayhem in a nursery wing at the local hospital. Don’t let her name – Agatha Hagglethorn
– lull you to sleep, Harry. She can pack
a mean wallop.

But
ghosts can’t beef themselves up, can they?
Something – or someone – has to be behind all this. And besides all that, there seems to be a
sudden increase in the sheer number of undead creatures crossing over from Nevernever into the
real world.

And that’s perhaps the scariest aspect of all.

What’s To Like...

Grave Peril
is the third book in Jim Butcher’s incredibly popular Dresden
Files series, which I’ve enjoyed immensely so far, despite only reading
it sporadically. The action starts immediately,
and really doesn’t let up until the final page.
It’s been a couple years since I read Book 2 (reviewed here), and I’d
forgotten some of the supporting characters, but I quickly became reacquainted with
everyone. Bob’s back , who I do
remember, and I liked meeting a new guy, Thomas, a vampire of the White Court.

There are a bunch of nasty critters for Harry and Michael to deal with, from
ghosts to hellhounds, from vampires to demons. Perhaps the most dangerous of all is Harry’s
godmother, Lea, who keeps trapping both our heroes in increasingly desperate “deals”
in exchange for bailing them out of difficult scrapes. Some of these are still unresolved at the end
of the story, and no doubt will spill over into Book 4. Nonetheless, Grave Peril is a complete story in itself.

As
always, there is an abundance of Butcher's/Dresden's wit and dry humor. I also liked the Kenny Rogers reference, and the concept of Cassandra’s Tears. The
writing is good, and the storytelling is tight.
There are no “wasted” characters; if Butcher takes the time to develop someone, take note, because they will figure into the
tale somewhere down the line.

Kewlest New Word ...

Sidhe(n)
: the faerie people of Irish folklore.

Others : lambent(adj.); surcease(n.); demesne(n.).

Excerpts...

The male vampire
opened his mouth, showing his fangs, and laughed. “Peace, wizard. We’re not here for your blood.”

“Speak for
yourself,” the girl said. She licked her
lips again, and this time I could see the black spots on her long, pink
tongue. Ewg.

The male smiled
and put a hand on her shoulder, a gesture that was half affection, half
physical restraint. “My sister hasn’t
eaten tonight,” he explained,. “She’s on
a diet.”

“Vampires on a
diet?” Susan murmured beneath her breath.

“Yeah,” I said
back, sotto voce. “Make hers a Blood
Lite.”

Susan made a
choking sound. (pg. 67)

Thaumaturgy is
traditional magic, all about drawing symbolic links between items or people and
then investing energy to get the effect that you want. You can do a lot with thaumaturgy, provided
you have enough time to plan things out, and more time to prepare a ritual, the
symbolic objects, and the magical circle.

I
don’t really have any quibbles with Grave Peril,
and I can see why the series is so popular, especially among teenagers. There is some cussing, which prudes may find offensive, but it isn’t excessive, and I feel it adds to the tone of the tale.

So
too with the violence. Wherever you find
vampires, you’ll also find victims, and there is collateral damage whenever you’re
fighting the Undead. And poor Harry gets
beat up more times than Bruce Willis in a Die Hard
flick.

It all builds to an exciting ending. Despite knowing
that Harry will prevail (there are after all another dozen books to go in the
series), I still kept turning the pages, wondering how he was going
to overcome the forces arrayed against him and Michael. The “key mechanism” by which he turns thing
around felt a bit clichéd to me, but I think most readers will have a better
opinion of it.

8½ Stars. This is actually the fourth book in the
series (Books 1, 2, 6, and now 3) that I’ve read and I have yet to be disappointed.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

1920; 244 pages. New Author? : Yes, but not a new series. Book #1 (out
of 6) of E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Luciaseries. Genre : Humor, British Fiction. Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

Mrs.
Emmeline “Lucia” Lucas should like to be properly addressed as “Queen Lucia”. Don’t take my word for it; ask her. Oh, her queendom is rather small – a quaint
little English village called Riseholme, close to London. And her realm is limited to the social and
cultural goings-on in Riseholme. Don’t
even think about holding a social event without first clearing it with her, and
second inviting her.

Lately
some of Lucia’s Riseholme subjects seem to be acting a bit, well,
rebellious. There’s Daisy Quantock with
her dabbling in the ridiculous practices of spiritualism. And even Lucia’s best friend (not including her husband), Georgie
Pillson, at times seems to be a bit reluctant in sharing all of the
neighborhood gossip.

But
uneasy lies the head that wears the crown when a new socialite moves to
Riseholme. Someone who sings better than
Lucia and speaks better Italian than her.
Someone who could seriously threaten the “Queen” in “Queen Lucia”.

We
wouldn’t start a war, of course. That
would be undignified. But some spirited
competition for the title is perhaps called for.

What’s To Like...

Queen Lucia was published in 1920, so the reader
gets a glimpse of life in small-town England a century ago. The tone is lighthearted and pokes gentle
fun at those trying to climb the post-Victorian social ladder. Most of the characters are likeably obnoxious,
which seems like an oxymoron.

The
book is written in “English”, as opposed to “American”, and I always like
that. It means the (Yankee) reader will encounter lots of strange words and
phrases. You can ride in a “fly”, which
I gather is slang for a 1920’s cab. And
you can compliment someone by calling them a “brick”, which I’d never heard of
before.

Italian gets spoken quite often, a lot of times mangled. I thought that was kewl. Yet beneath all the social humor, I thought
the reader gets a good glimpse of life back there and then. You’re going to laugh at the dress codes –
Hightum, Tightum, and Scrub.

There
is a running theme on spiritualism, which I gather was quite trendy in those
days. Daisy Quantock bounces from
Christian Science to Uric Acid, to an Indian Guru, then to séances, followed by
“automatic writing” (directed by a spirit) and from there to palm reading. It all wraps up with magic pills that will
make you grow several inches taller in just a couple weeks. Let's hope the partaker of the pills remembers to stop taking them before he becomes a beanpole. One gets the feeling that E.F. Benson took a
dim view of all this.

Kewlest New Word. . .

Gladstone bag(n.;
phrase) : A bag-like briefcase having two equal compartments joined by a
hinge. (Google-image it).

With regard to
religion finally, it may be briefly said that she believed in God in much the
same way as she believed in Australia, for she had no doubt whatever as to the
existence of either, and she went to church on Sunday in much the same spirit
as she would look at a kangaroo in the Zoological Gardens, for kangaroos came
from Australia.(loc.
197)

Georgie rapidly
considered what Hermy’s and Ursy’s comments would be if, when they arrived
tomorrow, he was found doing exercises under the tuition of a Guru. Hermy, when she was not otter-hunting, could
be very sarcastic, and he had a clear month of Hermy in front of him, without
any otter-hunting, which, so she had informed him, was not possible in August. This was mysterious to Georgie, because it
did not seem likely that all otters died in August. (loc. 482)

Kindle Details...

The copyright on Queen Luciahas expired so you can always get it
for free
at Amazon. There are also a couple
versions of it that go for $0.99-$3.99(including one annotated version) but why pay when you don’t have
to?

Queen Lucia is E.F. Benson’s first book in the
6-volume “Lucia” series. Curiously, I became
aware of the series through the author Tom Holt, who I very much enjoy, and who
wrote 2 sequels for it in the 1980’s. The one I read is reviewed here. Frankly, I think Holt improved things.

The main problem is the action – there is none. Our characters talk and plan and scheme and
gossip. But very little happens beyond
that. The secondary issue is the writing
style. Benson frequently gets quite wordy about trivial things. All of this leads to slow spots. The book is short, but it took me a while to
trudge through it. It also doesn’t help
that the titular character is not very heroic.

Still,
if you can make it through all the slow spots, you will be treated to an ending
that has a twist or two, and is, I thought, very well done. And that makes up for the tediousness.

5½ Stars. Add 2 stars
if you really liked movies such as The Breakfast
Club and Return of the Secaucus Seven. They didn't have any action in them either, and some people seemed to love them.